Modern Player Accessibility Issues with Color

Hi Peter, 

I'm sorry for the delay, and I understand your frustrations. It feels like a simple fix, but the changes required were not trivial and touched on many behind the scenes player elements. The feature to address this is currently in development and nearing beta. We've coupled this change with another feature, and I believe both will be worth the wait.

Your case remains in my queue, and as I mentioned a couple of months ago, I have you slated for the beta program to preview this feature. Over the next two months, we have other enhancements coming to our Accessibility support, and this is just one of them.

Thanks for the suggested workaround, Matthew. 

Can anyone provide an update on this?  Unless I'm missing something, it doesn't seem to have been addressed with the latest release. Is there a timeline for when we'll be able to change the colors of the text in the modern player in order to meet WCAG criteria for contrast?  

Thanks in advance!

Hi Laurie!

The new Modern Player is currently in beta, so we are close to releasing this feature in an upcoming release. We'll keep you posted in this discussion when it ships!

Hi Matthew, 

Thanks for following-up and sharing some of the hurdles you’re facing, and I apologize for the confusion surrounding the Modern Player.

You’re right that we released the Modern Player in 2018, and we are currently focusing on improving color contrast to meet WCAG guidelines. These improvements were released in our beta group recently, which is our standard approach for all updates to Articulate 360.  If you’d like to participate in the beta program, I’ll be happy to connect you with my team!

Also, I appreciate some of the pain points you’ve discussed regarding the VPAT and current limitations. For WCAG 1.4.3, we make mention of current improvements to ensure all elements and states have accessible contrast.

We’ve also shared this on our Feature Roadmap and taken opportunities to share in specific discussions.

I hear you about making current limitations more transparent and widely available. Along with helping customers understand WCAG guidelines and how they fit within Storyline’s features, I’ll be sure to share this with my team so we can work on ways to make that happen.

Hi Matthew!

I apologize for the confusion I’ve caused regarding the Modern Player being in beta. To clarify, a Modern Player update with accessible contrast is in beta.

When it comes to accessibility, we really have all hands on deck. We have a team of engineers, writers, and members of the support team, including myself, diving into Deque University classes and attending virtual conferences centered around accessibility. We are working to not only offer products that meet and exceed accessibility guidelines but also support our customers who are designing with accessibility in mind.

With all the information we are consuming, we’ve accepted the fact that this is a journey. We are digesting information as it happens and working on publishing more resources for the community as we are able. Additionally, we are so appreciative of folx’ patience as we come up to speed with the ever-changing market and technology. We’re happy to be on this journey with folx like you, Matthew!

Thank you so much for your offer. I’ve shared this idea with our team so they can reach out to you directly.

Again, my apologies for the confusion!

As a sidenote on how important accessibility is for US companies. I do get a lot of requests for projects...  and a lot of these projects need to be 100% accessible. When a company wants it made in Storyline i always have to point out that the player IS NOT fully compliant to 508 guidelines.... and that major time is needed to get it fully compliant. Offcourse this can be done, but not out-of-the-box. And it should be fully compliant out of the box. Some companies then do want it developed in Storyline. Some don't and go look for better compliant tools.

Hi Matthew!

I'm very impressed with the Deque University curriculum! It's been eye-opening and motivating. I'd highly recommend taking a look at their offerings.

I joined in on their conference, axe-con, this week which was jam-packed with sessions lead by accessibility gurus. All sessions were recorded if you have an interest in any of the sessions on their schedule.

Hi there! Just wondering if there is any resolution on this? We have a client who wishes to change the background colour of the side Navigation Panel, and the colour of the PREV/NEXT/SUBMIT buttons, to meet Accessibility standards. 

Hello Ren - How can we join the beta program and is this the same as the accessibility testing group? How would we join either?

Thanks!

Hi Adriane,

We have several beta groups for different features. I was specifically referring to the Accessibility group here and would be happy to share your request with our team. They'll reach out to you directly with the next steps if they find it's a good fit!

Hi Ren,

What beta groups are there ? 

Hi, everyone.

I have great news to share!

We just released another update for Storyline 360. In Update 50, we’ve included important fixes and new features.

One of the features we’ve included is:

The modern player meets WCAG accessibility guidelines for visual contrast and color so all learners can read the text, decipher the icons, perceive the controls, and navigate easily. Learn more about modern player accessible contrast.

To take advantage of this update, launch the Articulate 360 desktop app on your computer and click the Update button next to Storyline 360. You'll find our step-by-step instructions here.

Please let us know if you have any questions by posting here or by reaching out to our Support Engineers directly. 

Yay! Thank you!

Yes, thank you, thank you!  Perfect timing, just delivering multiple 508 compliant courses with the Modern Player and was hoping this would be fixed in time for final delivery so we didn't need to go back to the Classic Player!  

Awesome!

Hi

I updated this morning and now lightboxes are behaving oddly. Please see this example.

Now when viewing in 360, engage interactions are not behaving correctly. The first time viewed, they view fine. Any time after that I get a white screen where the interaction should be and everything freezes - can’t close lightbox or use nav. 

I have a course I'm working on that includes engage interactions in lightboxes as well as other lighboxed slides with no engage interactions. They are all behaving like this. In the example I provided, only the lightbox with the engage interaction is doing it.

This was not happening yesterday or any other day previously.

Other lessons with the same functionality that were uploaded to Review360 prior to this latest update are displaying correctly!

Nicole

03/24/21 Update - I reinstalled the previous version of Storyline and my files function correctly now. And again, all files that were published to 360 PRIOR to the latest update function correctly. Files published AFTER the latest update do not.

03/25/21 Update - The response I've received so far:

"Thanks for writing back and sharing your test results.

After careful testing, I have identified that using the lightbox trigger option "Use navigation controls" is causing the lightbox of Engage Interaction to freeze.

I’ve logged it as a possible software bug. From here, I’ll meet with my team to take a closer look so we can determine next steps."

The April 27, 2021 (Build 3.51.24979.0) update states:

• Fixed: Sometimes, lightboxes were blank in published output.

Lightboxes were blank when using navigation and when revisited. Did this fix that issue??

Thanks.

Hello Nicole, and thanks for following up!

We just released Storyline 360 Update 52, and in it, you’ll find a fix for the bug you encountered where:

When using a Lightbox trigger to display an Engage 360 interaction, enabling the “Use Navigation Controls” option will cause the Lightbox to freeze when displaying the Engage interaction on the 2nd visit.

From here, I’d recommend updating to this latest version to see if that helps:  install the latest Storyline 360 version here. If this happens again, please feel free to work directly with our support engineers here so they can help troubleshoot!